Strike a Pose! Yoga protects older women at risk of Alzheimer's disease
If you’re an older woman who wants to preserve your memory, consider yoga. A recent study from UCLA found that Kundalini yoga offered many benefits to memory and cognition for those at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. These included the restoration of neural pathways, prevention of brain matter decline, and decreasing aging and inflammation-associated biomarkers. These improvements were not observed in subjects who were provided standard memory training exercises.
Health Researchers at UCLA have been conducting a series of studies into the comparative effects of yoga and traditional memory enhancement training for the past 15 years. They set out to compare the impact on slowing cognitive decline and evaluating other risk factors for dementia. Findings from the study were recently published in the journal Translational Psychiatry,
The study was led by UCLA Health psychiatrist Dr. Helen Lavretsky of the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and sought to find out whether Kundalini yoga could be used early on to prevent cognitive decline and paths to Alzheimer's disease among postmenopausal women.
Compared to men women have about twice the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease due to several factors including longer life expectancy, alterations in estrogen levels during menopause, and family history.
A group of over 60 women aged 50 and up who had self-reported memory concerns and risk factors for cerebrovascular disease were invited to participate. They were patients at a UCLA cardiology clinic. Women were divided into two groups. The first attended weekly Kundalini yoga classes for 12 weeks and the other group participated in weekly memory enhancement training at the same time. Each group was given daily homework assignments.
Meditation and breath work are hallmarks of Kundalini yoga versus physical poses. The UCLA Longevity Center utilized various exercises including stories to recall items on a list, and organizing a grocery list of items, to help retain or improve memory.
Yoga and Lower Risk of Alzheimers
Women’s cognition, subjective memory, depression, and anxiety after the initial 12 weeks were assessed by the researchers. In addition, blood samples were taken to test for gene expression of markers of aging and molecules linked with inflammation, which contribute to the risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Some patients were also evaluated with MRIs to look at changes in brain matter.
Several improvements in the Kundalini yoga group were observed by the researchers compared to the memory enhancement training group. These included improvements in subjective memory complaints, prevention of brain matter declines, increased connection in the hippocampus, which controls stress-related memories, and improvement in various markers of inflammation and anti-aging molecules.
"That is what yoga is good for -- to reduce stress, to improve brain health, subjective memory performance, and reduce inflammation and improve neuroplasticity," Lavretsky said. In the memory enhancement training group, long-term memory showed the most improvements.
Changes in anxiety, depression, stress, or resilience were not seen in either group, but Lavretsky noted it’s likely due to the participant's good health at the start of the study and none were depressed.
Further study is needed to evaluate the long-term impact of Kundalini yoga in the prevention or delay of Alzheimer’s disease but the study showed that use of yoga and memory training could offer benefits to the cognition of older women.
"Ideally, people should do both because they do train different parts of the brain and have different overall health effects," Lavretsky said. "Yoga has this anti-inflammatory, stress-reducing, anti-aging neuroplastic brain effect which would be complementary to memory training."